Landscapes of power: Politics of energy in the Navajo Nation

• Main Author: RANDLE, Sayd
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Energy Policy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/101; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/cis_research/article/1100/viewcontent/Landscapes_of_power_politics_of_energy_in_the_Navajo_Nation.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Remote, extractive landscapes are often marked by persistent pollution, particularly when the extracted resource in question comes from underground and serves as a source of energy. The toxic legacies of fracking, mountaintop removal and more conventional mining projects are well documented at this point. The disproportionately polluted extractive ‘hinterland’ looms especially large in recent accounts of the rural West of the United States, which tend to emphasize the ways in which these ‘peripheries’ have enabled consumption and prosperity elsewhere (e.g. Kuletz 1998; Needham 2014; Voyles 2015). Dana Powell’s Landscapes of power (2018) moves swiftly beyond a recognition of such patterns to offer a complex, multivalent account of how power circulates within and shapes these landscapes. Centering the experience of inhabiting such terrain, rather than simply removing materials from it, the book presents a powerful case for attending to the role of ‘hinterland’ communities in the production and consumption of energy.